Whack Job
by DebbieB
Summary: The new Secretary to the President, Debbie Fidderer has some big shoes to fill.


I tell you what. The past few years have been an odd trip. The divorce, getting fired, the gambling, the sheep. You'd think this sort of thing would build character in a person, but I don't feel all that much like my character's been built.

I was a character to begin with, and all this strife has just made me cranky.

He's sitting there. POTUS. I love these acronyms. He's staring straight ahead, thinking about God knows what awful stuff a man in his position has to think about. His travel plans are shot completely to hell, his cell phone is not working, and he's trapped in an elevator with a lunatic. You know that's got to be driving him nuts.

Leo McGarry has been on the elevator intercom so many times since the power went out he's started to annoy the president.

They're "cooling off" now.

I've chosen the wiser course of action and am holding my tongue. He's not really talkative when he gets in moods like this, and this snafu with the power is just adding to his stress.

Maybe I could offer him some meditation techniques, just to help with his blood pressure.

On the other hand, probably not. I think he's achieved an altered state all on his own, and any suggestions on my part might just elevate him past the point of no return.

Not in a stuck elevator, boy-oh.

I look at him, surreptitiously, like I used to do when Mr. Fidderer went on one of his rampages. It's easier now to think of him as "Mr. Fidderer." It puts a perspective on things, like he was a crazy mean school teacher instead of my husband, and I've graduated from his class, instead of sued for divorce with at least two injunctions against the son of a bitch.

No, the president is nothing like Mr. Fidderer, even when furious. And, let me tell you, that man is furious. Joint Chiefs, Leo, some ambassador from one of the Arab Emirates so small even I hadn't heard of if--all of them traipsing through the Oval Office like it was high noon at Grand Central Station. Shouting matches, then quiets that were even more nerve-wracking.

Charlie didn't seem to mind.

Charlie never lived with Mr. Fidderer.

I guess that's why Mrs. L. had been so strong in the air this morning. I wonder what POTUS would say if I told him his dead ex-secretary was haunting my desk? He'd probably grin like he does when he's thinking, "She's a whack job, but she's an efficient whack job."

It was the worst the first few weeks I worked for him. The old dame wouldn't leave me alone. I'd order his reports for him, only to come back from the john to see them completely reordered, and Charlie nowhere in sight. I'd save memos and drafts, and come in the next day to find them slightly reworded, just a bit. Nothing a psychiatrist would have me institutionalized for, but definitely enough to freak me out.

Now I'm not exactly a stranger to the White House clerical protocols. I know how things are done, and I do them that way. The changes she'd make were not correcting my form. They were correcting my Bartlet. Little turns of phrase on his correspondence, minor adjustments that transformed my work into his work.

Like she'd been doing for years.

They say she knew him longer than even Dr. Mrs. POTUS. They had this connection, see, and I don't think it broke just because some asshole kid who couldn't be bothered to check her keys before she got tanked did a full head-on with the old lady's new car.

The first damned week, all I could do was smell cookies. At the desk, mostly, but everywhere else too. On Air Force One, for Christ sake! I remember Charlie's look when I asked him if he smelled them, too. Like I was nuts, but not nuts. Like maybe he smelled them, too.

I didn't know about the cookie jar until he told me. The president had given it to Charlie in remembrance.

I finally reversed the Curse of the Overwhelming Scent of Baked Goods by just bringing them in myself. Charlie reinstated the Delores Landingham Memorial Cookie Jar with great solemnity, and we had a little event, just the two of us outside the Oval Office.

It got better after that.

I think, sometimes, the old dame channels through me. Sometimes, when I'm tired or just off my guard, I'll hear things come out of my mouth in a way I'd never think to phrase them. Usually with Bartlet, who turns to me with this odd expression on his face.

Like he'd seen (or heard) a ghost.

In fact, the only time she wasn't around was when Walken assumed the presidency temporarily when Zoey Bartlet was kidnapped. She was nowhere to be found during that horrible time, at least not in the Oval Office. No, my guess is she was with him, in the residence, looking out for him like she always did.

She's here now. She's watching him. I can sense her, even if I can't see her. She's looking out for him, like she always has, like she probably will until he the day he leaves this life and joins her wherever she is. Then, and only then, she'll be able to finally rest in peace.

There's a part of me that wants to tell her to go away. To find some other whack job to haunt. I got this job for a reason. I'm still working on figuring out what that reason is, but it's a good reason, damn it. I'm not the fake Landingham. I'm Deborah Fidderer, and I'm good. I'm damned good at what I do, even if I haven't known His Excellency Lord POTUS here since he was in short pants.

He's looking tired. I lean over and grab my travel bag. I slammed it to the floor upon learning we'd be in here for a while. I pull out a bottled water and hand it to him without a word. Yeah, I know they have drinks on Air Force One. You can't take the girl scout out of the girl, you know?

He stares at it, and then me.

"Jeezhes," I say. "I'll take the first sip, if you want me too." He raises his eyebrow warily, but there's almost a hint of a smile lurking somewhere on that face. "Make one lousy comment about spiking the president's water with arsenic, and they never trust you again."

This actually gets a chuckle out of him. I'm glad, and so's the old lady. He takes the water.

"Thank you, Debbie," he says as he breaks the seal on the cap and takes a sip. I've already gotten bottle number two for myself. I'd hesitated to break out the refreshments, because you really don't want to tempt the Gods of Bladder Control if you don't have to. But we'd already been in here for several minutes and it was something to do while waiting for Leo to get brave enough to try the intercom again.

"You're welcome, Mr. President."

"So, what do you think about all this mess, Mrs. Fidderer?" he asks me in that way he has. He's testing me, I suspect. Or maybe he's just that obsessed with this mess.

"I think it's high time somebody paid the electric bill."

He laughs. I know he wasn't talking about the power bust. He was talking about the mess that has been ratcheting up his blood pressure for the better part of the week.

And I know, without knowing why, that I am not going to say a word. I am absolutely not going to express an opinion on this particular matter of state policy.

And he knows it, too. He takes another swig of his Dasani and leans back against the wall of the elevator. "How are the sheep?"

"Excellent, Mr. President. I donated them to the National Zoo. Well, I tried to, but they referred me to a petting zoo in Georgetown instead."

He nods, as if that somehow garnered his approval. We sit in silence for some time, thoughts of alpacas hanging between us as we hydrate ourselves with overpriced water. Then he says, "You're not going to tell me what you think of this mess, are you, Debbie?"

"No, sir, I most definitely am not."

"You never held back your opinions before."

"I've never been trapped in an enclosed space with you before. There's no visible route of escape, so I'm keeping my opinions to myself, thank you."

He thinks about it, and then looks at me with that smile that's won him two elections. "You are a very wise woman, Mrs. Fidderer," he says.

"Not bad for a whack job." Can't help it. Had to do it. Earned an extra ten in purgatory for it, but the look on his face is payment enough.

"You heard that?"

"I hear everything," I say. "But you didn't know that at the time."

He chuckles, stretching his legs out in front of him. "And you let me get away with it?"

"You let me keep my job. I figured we were even."

"Oh, no, we're not even, Debbie," he teases.

"I know that, Mr. President."

There are two "worst things" about being stuck in an elevator. The first is the lack of adequate ventilation, leading to heat. The second is the lack of a good exit line. Well, a good exit. You can have great exit lines all you want, you just can't exit.

So here we are again. The momentary ease of communication has passed, and we're still here. He's gone back to staring again, and I wonder when Leo is going to start pestering him again.

I don't know what the hell gets into me, but I blurt out, "At the risk of you thinking I'm a complete nut job…" I ignore his look, the one could be interpreted as him thinking, "What do you mean, 'at the risk of'" "Can I ask you something, Mr. President?"

He nods.

Here it goes. Give her five minutes to get started, boys, because Debbie Fidderer has stepped on the fast track to unemployment and possible institutionalization. "Sometimes, in the office, I get the feeling that…" Oh, boy. Stop it, you idiot. This is a great job. Clamp down on the Tourette's and just fill in with some thing about the air circulation being off and maybe we should have it checked. But no, I can't do that. I keep going, just like I always keep going, opening my mouth and letting the Freak Inside have her voice. "Sometimes, I get the feeling that Mrs. Landingham…"

His face pales at her name. Jeezhes, what am I doing? She was like a mother to him, or at least a big sister. Why the hell do you pick now to bring this up? Why ever bring this up at all?

"Yes?" he asks in this calm, dark voice.

"Um, once in a while…." All the freaking time, that is... "I get the feeling that, maybe, she's…um….watching over us."

"You mean haunting the place."

"I didn't say that." Smooth, Debbie. I wonder if that petting zoo would let you buy back the sheep at cost. When we get out of this elevator, and when the President of the United States has me escorted by Secret Service to the nearest mental ward.

"Mrs. Fidderer, let me tell you something about Delores Landingham." Oh, goodie. He's going to give a speech. Giving speeches always puts him in a better mood. Maybe I'll just get demoted to the typing pool….

"Okay….."

"She was a remarkable woman. And if anyone, anyone at all, has the capacity to haunt the Oval Office, it's Mrs. Landingham." He's grinning at me, at the obvious look of relief I know I have on my face. Then, for just a moment, I see something else there, something that isn't teasing, something that looks just a little, I don't know, maybe serious? "For the first few weeks after she was gone," he says to me in this quiet, almost reverent voice. "Everywhere I went, I kept smelling cookies."

The silence between us is probably the most oppressive thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. And I can tell, just by looking at him, just by looking in his eyes, that he's serious. He didn't overhear me talking to Charlie, and he's not playing a joke on me. He means it.

I can barely find my voice. "Me, too, Mr. President."

We're just sitting there, silent, when Leo comes back on the intercom. His voice is the last thing I hear before the power comes back on, and the elevator shifts into motion once more.

We stand, not looking at each other as we brush ourselves off.

"Leo, they got the power back on!" he calls happily to the disembodied voice of his Chief of Staff.

"Strangest thing, Mr. President. The power's still off, but the elevator is working. Nobody can figure out why."

We stare at each other.

"No," I say. But we're both grinning.

She's heeeeeeerrrrrrreeeeeee……!

"How long has it been, Leo?" he asks the ceiling.

"Twenty-two minutes, sir," comes the god-like response from above.

The President nods, and turns to me with a wink. "That's the longest break I've gotten since I took this job." He says this to Leo, but he's looking at me. "Okay, Mrs. Fidderer. Now that we've gotten the back on track, what's next?"

The End


End file.
